Free One Foot Onto the Ice by Kiki Archer Page A

height of
the mountain ahead of them. “How high does this chairlift take us?”
    “Up to 1800 m. Morzine’s actually a pretty low lying resort, but
we’ll be on here for a good ten minutes.” Jenna reached into the sleeve pocket
of her red ski jacket and pulled out a small silver hip flask. She passed it to
Susan. “Here, have a sip. It’s cherry brandy.”
    Susan left the offering where it was. “Alcohol? On a chairlift? I
don’t think so.”
    Jenna shrugged and twisted off the lid as carefully as she could
with her thick ski gloves on. She took a tiny sip. “It warms the chest. Go on,
try some. It’s gorgeous and it’s not like there’s loads in there.”
    “No. Don’t pressure me. I feel like I’m fifteen again, re-living
the Christmas concert.”
    “What Christmas concert?”
    Susan wiped some snow from the metal safety bar. “We were fifteen.
I was a snail.”
    Jenna laughed. “You were a snail in the Christmas concert? What
was I?”
    “Jesus.”
    Jenna burst out laughing. “I’ve never been Jesus.”
    “Oh you know what I mean. You were the star of the show.” Susan rested
her ski poles over her legs. “Anyway, you and Andrea Akram had some absinthe.
She’d brought it back from one of her foreign trips and she was daring us all
to have a try.”
    “Did I try some?”
    “Of course you did. Everyone did apart from me.”
    Jenna frowned. “Why can’t I remember this?”
    “Stuff like that wasn’t a big deal to you. You took everything in
your stride.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I kept saying no. I was worried about my performance in the
play.”
    “Your performance as a snail?”
    “Yes.”
    Jenna grinned. “How did it go?”
    “Exactly, you can’t remember it!” Susan pulled a face. “No one
can.”
    Jenna reached out and squeezed Susan’s knee. “Oh bless you, you
feel hard done by because you were the snail.”
    “No. I feel hard done by because I failed to make an impression on
anyone at school. I was always the one picked last for the sports teams. I was
always the one without a partner when it came to group work. I was always the
one sitting on my own at lunchtimes. I was always the one laughed at for not
wearing a bra.”
    Jenna looked genuinely shocked. “That’s not how I remember you.
And anyway, none of us needed a bra at eleven.”
    “You did,” nodded Susan.
    “Did I now?” laughed Jenna, looking at her old classmate with intrigue.
“How interesting for you to notice. Let me tell you what I noticed about you.”
She started to tap the metal safety bar with each point she made. “You were the
one who always came top in the exams. The one always picked by the teachers to
give an example in class. The one with the best attendance record. The one
whose uniform always looked so smart—”
    Susan laughed and cut in. “You’re scraping the barrel now! How
brilliant that I’m remembered for having a smart uniform.”
    “Oh you know what I’m saying. You always looked so put together.
So well kempt.”
    “I’d rather be remembered like you. Carefree. Fun loving. Bags of
charisma.”
    “Why do I always get carefree? My work colleagues think that too.”
    Susan raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you?”
    “In some ways, I guess I am. But I worry that carefree means
shallow. I worry that people think I just live for the moment.”
    “Don’t you?”
    Jenna laughed. “See! People think I’m one dimensional. Zero
responsibility and zero plans. The teachers at St Wilf’s always said that about
me.”
    “You did well though, didn’t you? One of the top performers in our
year if I remember correctly? Such a shock when you didn’t stay on to the sixth
form.”
    “I needed to find myself.”
    “Really?”
    Jenna laughed. “No, but it’s a long story. I’m happy where I am
now and I’m even happier that you remember me so favourably.”
    Susan smiled at her. “You were kind to me. You stuck up for me on
lots of occasions.”
    Jenna puzzled. “I don’t